Frank Lampard says he has mixed emotions over Chelsea’s Champions League triumph and insists he is reluctant to ‘lay claim’ to Thomas Tuchel’s success at Stamford Bridge.
Lampard was sacked as Chelsea manager at the end of January with the club ninth in the Premier League and was replaced by Tuchel.
The German coach made an immediate impact after his arrival at the club as he guided the blues to a fourth-placed finish in the Premier League and a win over Man City in the Champions League final.
Lampard has hailed Chelsea’s victory as a ‘great achievement’ and says Thomas Tuchel has done a ‘fantastic job’.
‘Obviously, you never want to lose your job, I’m in pretty good company at Chelsea, it happens, it’s the brutal reality of football at the top level,’ Lampard told the BBC.
‘With reflection, it’s been nice to spend some time out of the game.
‘I’m pretty proud of the job I did, it was an honour to manage the club. I came in at a tough time with the [transfer] ban and loss of Eden Hazard.
- Romelu Lukaku pays touching tribute to Christian Eriksen after Belgium goal
- Mbappe hails Mason Mount & picks two Premier League speedsters for special praise
‘Worked really hard in year one to get into the Champions League and Mason [Mount] and people like that, developing young players was a huge deal for me. ‘I’m happy, you don’t want to lose your job but it was a huge experience for me.’
When asked if he would have done anything differently, he said: ‘I can probably sit down and talk to you about a lot of things, that’s a manager’s job, there will be a lot of things you can do differently.
‘I’m very proud of year one, in year two there were different expectations, different complications. Every team had problems this year, as did we and I left my job. I can’t go back and look back in a negative way. I only want to use it to look positively going forward.
Asked if he had mixed emotions about Chelsea’s Champions League win, Lampard replied: ‘Yeah, you work towards something you want to be there, you want to be the manager.
‘I’ll never try to lay claim to that. I was part of the early foundation, potentially, but Thomas did a fantastic job getting them there.
‘I will say when I watched it, firstly I’m a Chelsea person, the Chelsea fans are happy and the club deserves that.
‘And secondly to see Mount and Reece [James] perform at that level, people like [Edouard] Mendy, [Ben] Chilwell and Thiago [Silva] who came in in my time there, makes me pretty proud. ‘Again, it was a great achievement by them and very well managed.’
